1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to a goal-achievement and learning system and method, specifically to an interactive, goal-oriented system and method that improves an individual's ability to achieve measurable, self-determined goals over periods of time using interactive information exchange, feedback and reinforcement.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Human learning, especially learning to achieve specific goals, has been a rather haphazard affair usually based on human-to-human interaction. At its best, when a student has the undivided attention of a human mentor, learning occurs rapidly and with excellent results. Unfortunately most people never encounter this type of mentoring situation because it is extremely inefficient, requiring one well-trained professional mentor per person. Consequently this learning method is very costly.
Because of these limitations, many inventors have attempted to create teaching machines that can take the place of a human teacher. Early approaches used mechanical means. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,981,087 to Sachs (1976) discloses a system which uses cards and conveyors. The advent of film and video allowed teaching machines such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,170,832 to Zimmerman (1979) to present audio-visual materials, but mechanical contrivances like these suffer from limited decision-making and response abilities.
The advent of electronic computers has prompted inventors to incorporate data processing systems into teaching machines. U.S. Pat. No. 3,999,307 to Tsuda (1976) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,611,996 to Stoner disclose such machines. However, these inventions are both examples of programmed learning. Such devices teach a preselected course of materials and provide limited feedback to the student. Programmed-learning systems do not teach the general skills of goal setting and achievement. The prior art seems to have completely ignored psychological knowledge about learning and motivation, particularly in learning to achieve goals.
Other inventors have exploited the computer's ability to track complex financial transaction sequences with the intent of helping users achieve improved financial results. U.S. Pat. No. 5,214,579 to Wolfberg (1993) discloses a goal-oriented investment indexing, tracking and monitoring data processing system that tracks investments and reports on portfolio growth. This system provides a user with feedback on investment decisions but it is a batch system based upon a large mainframe computer and therefore provides no interactivity. Further, Wolfberg's invention focuses on the computations of financial performance, not on the optimizations of user feedback and learner motivation, to achieve self-determined goals.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,126,936 to Champion (1992) describes a goal-directed financial asset management system for making financial trades. Champion's invention evaluates requested trades and either affirms or denies them based on computed risk factors. Champion's invention does not provide direct feedback to the user and is unconcerned with a user's motivation. Any user feedback from Champion's invention must take place through indirect means. Indirect feedback is much less effective as a learning tool than direct and timely feedback.
Psychologists and educators have long recognized the importance of setting goals for individuals and groups to achieve improved performance. Learning theories share a common thread that includes the importance of reinforcement, rewards, success and failure, and knowledge of results. It has become an accepted principle that ultimately all learning is self-directed. The eminent American psychologist Carl Rogers said in his later years, "I have come to believe that the only learning which significantly influences behavior is self-discovery, self-appropriated learning." In addition, for feedback to be motivating, the learner must perceive the goal as attainable and must value the outcome and rewards accrued through improved performance.
Since the 1960's, expectancy theory as articulated by V. H. Vroom has stated that motivation can be influenced by an individual's expectation that effort or action by the individual will lead to the desired result. More recently, Synder has shown that hope does more than provide a bit of solace. It plays a surprisingly potent role in life. Hope, in a technical sense, is more than the sunny view that everything will turn out all right. Synder defines it with more specificity as "believing you have both the will and the way to accomplish your goal, whatever they may be."
As an example, even though we are all familiar with the importance of goals, we are also all familiar with the New Year's resolution to lose weight which is often forgotten before February first. The individual's loss of motivation does not occur because the weight-loss goal was not a serious objective. There was no weight loss because there was no simple, readily available way to collect data that provided the feedback, reinforcement and rewards necessary to motivate continued improvement. Getting on the scales and weighing yourself is not enough of a psychologically rewarding task to energize and motivate improved behavior. The immediate reinforcement provided by your favorite food and beverage is a far more powerful motivator than the data you get by checking your current weight.
At the same time, research has shown that the collection, analysis and feedback of measurable data can be an extremely effective motivator. Individuals will learn and behave in ways that improve performance when they:
set realistic goals, PA1 have clear expectations that certain actions will lead to success, PA1 compete with their own results, and PA1 keep score with personally meaningful, non-punitive, reinforcing feedback. PA1 a specific task or activity must be identified, a goal must be set, and the personal actions needed to improve performance must be presented to the individual; PA1 the individual needs to participate in the collection of the data and believe in the accuracy and meaningfulness of the information; PA1 the feedback provided to the individual needs to be timely and must be seen as relating to personal actions that an individual can control; and PA1 the feedback should be presented in a positive and non-threatening manner with appropriate positive and negative rewards for improved or for poor performance respectively. PA1 to provide an interactive system and method that helps a person achieve any quantitatively measurable goal over a period of time through timely user feedback regarding progress made to date towards selected goals; PA1 to provide an interactive system and method that will give a person helpful counsel and advice on how to reach selected goals based on the person's past performance; PA1 to provide an interactive system and method that will challenge and teach a person to achieve goals by providing psychological feedback designed to encourage rapid learning; and PA1 to provide an interactive system and method that will provide a person with psychological reinforcement that enhances learning through positive reinforcement in response to good choices and negative reinforcement in response to poor choices.
The advent of computer games provides clear evidence of the addictive, motivating power of immediate feedback. The learning that takes place as game players try to improve their score is clear evidence of the effect immediate feedback has on learning as well.
In many situations an individual sets a measurable goal such as weight loss or sales gains and then seeks a person, support group, coach or mentor to assure success. An individual or a group working with the individual on a regular basis to maintain goal-focused activity, provide feedback and furnish reinforcement does improve results and encourage learning. This process works more or less for different people depending on the nature and quality of the feedback and the type of reinforcement supplied by the coach or group. Managers in a work setting are expected to perform this role but more often than not they have limited understanding of the psychological process of learning and feedback. Some managers do help people learn to improve performance by providing immediate feedback, reinforcement and rewards, but this is not a predictable behavior for many mangers.
Furthermore, psychological studies repeatedly show that motivation to improve performance is intrinsic to every individual and is not the result of someone else's manipulation. Studies also show that individuals often set goals but they seldom establish a systematic program that will provide the analysis of results, the feedback and the reinforcement that is essential to reach their goal.
In addition to what is known about learning, motivation and influencing behavior, it is significant to point out that the process of striving to reach an objective is not necessarily a rational activity. Expectations about personal outcomes drive behavior even when the behavior can not actually control the outcome. Witness the individual playing a casino slot machine. This is not a rational behavior, because most gambling-machine players lose, but gamblers hold expectations about a payoff and the gambling machine is designed to reinforce personal action with random rewards. The machine rewards the individual just enough to maintain this irrational, goal-focused expectation until the gambler's money runs out. Unfortunately, although gambling machines are designed to exploit the principles of expectancy, feedback and rewards, they do so to maximize the extraction of money from the individual and not to effect learning or to help the individual achieve realistic goals.
For data feedback to be motivating several conditions must exist: